


Eleven Time Dom Had His Cake (And One Time He Ate It, Too)

by beetle



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 11:32:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompt: "Cobb was very heavy when he and Mal met; she fell in love with him just the way he was, but she worried for his health and put him on a diet. Then she introduced him to Arthur, who was in charge of developing calisthenics programs for military dream workers. Poor Cobb became lean, mean, and almost always hungry. Now that he is back with his kids, Cobb can't stop yearning for cake. He thinks constantly about going to KFC and staring at advertisements for fast food with longing. But Arthur keeps texting him new diet/exercise plans, and he feels too guilty to indulge. Then someone shows up at his house with a huge chocolate cake for his birthday, and he falls in love."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eleven Time Dom Had His Cake (And One Time He Ate It, Too)

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Don’t own, so don’t sue.  
> Notes: Pre- and post-Inception.

 

I

  
  
“I beg your pardon. . . .”  
  
At the soft, accented voice, Dom looks up from what was to be his first bite of Heaven.  
  
A beautiful woman—possibly the most beautiful woman Dom’s ever seen—is standing at his tableside like an attentive hostess, round blue-grey eyes locked covetously on the chocolate confection gracing his plate.  
  
“I hate to disturb you, but . . . what kind of dessert is that?” She tucks a tendril of thick, curling dark hair behind one shell-like ear.  
  
 _'Shell-like'?_  Dom thinks, confused, mildly alarmed, and utterly, irrevocably enrapt. He finds that for a moment, he’s quite forgotten the name of the very dessert he’d just ordered. “Um . . . it’s called S-sex-In-A-Pan,” he stammers, blushing and smiling wryly.  
  
Her blue-grey eyes don’t even widen before she starts giggling: not a tinkling, delicate tee-hee, no, but an almost raucous, unrestrained  _hee-hee-hoo!_  
  
“Oh, my!” she snorts, still giggling like a schoolgirl—the first beautiful woman ever to laugh  _with_ him and not at him. “But that is the  _perfect_  name for it, no?”  
  
Still mesmerized, Dom nods absently. “Would you, uh, like to try a piece?” he asks breathlessly. This is the first time he’s ever offered to share a dessert with anyone, but it comes as naturally as if he’s always done so.  
  
Her giggles tapering off, the beautiful woman begins to demur. “Oh, but I couldn’t—“  
  
“You can and you will,” Dom says, channeling his mother at her most maternal. He heaves himself laboriously out of his own chair and pulls out the one across from him.  
  
“Madame,” he says awkwardly, feeling like the gentleman he’s never been.   
  
The beautiful woman turns that curious gaze upon him . . . and that’s all he sees there. Not empathy, not pity, no assessing of his girth, no judgment. Just  _curiosity_ , as if she knows him from somewhere, but can’t quite place him.  
  
Then she sits. Oh, so gracefully, smoothing her skirt and flashing him a grateful smile as she does so.  
  
“Chivalry is alive and well,” she notes without irony, her gaze warmer and more approving than any ever cast upon him, with the exception of his mother (and even she only looked approving when he ate).  
  
“By the way, uh . . . I’m Dominic,” he says, holding out his hand. She takes it without hesitation, giving as good a shake as she gets.  
  
“Mallorie Miles,” she returns easily. Still smiling, but a bit more confidently, Dom takes his own seat.  
  
Appropriating Dom’s fork, Mallorie cuts a small corner off and brings it up to her mouth. The moment it touches her tongue, her eyes flutter shut and she moans a little, her perfect lips closing around the tines of the fork.  
  
“ _C’est magnifique_ ,” Mallorie murmurs, her mouth still full of dessert and her voice filled with absolutely wanton wonder. “Oh,  _Dominic_. . . .”  
  
Suddenly, Dom’s forgotten his own appetite, and can’t be bothered to remember it. It’s enough to watch Mallorie enjoy his dessert, making little coos and sighs when she takes another small corner to nibble on.  
  
Mallorie finishes the dessert in nibbles and bits—without Dom even taking a bite. She lingers over the last piece and licks the fork clean with tiny darts of pink tongue,  
  
Dom swallows, and finds that he’s quite full.  
  
When he smiles, she smiles back at him, her eyes alight.  
  
“That was—“ she begins, but interrupts herself with a tiny belch. Then she blushes, covering her mouth and rolling her eyes self-deprecatingly. It’s a strange, but endearing look on such a lovely woman, and Dom is charmed. Utterly enrapt.  
  
Mallorie laughs again, and Dom laughs with her, till his face is hot and she’s got the hiccups.  
  
This is the first time Dominic Cobb falls in love, and he falls quite without realizing it.  
  


II

  
  
“You’re fucking with me.”  
  
Arthur Bloom sighs —not for the first time since sitting down at the restaurant table—and runs a hand over his perfect hair.  
  
“No, I’m not, Dom. One mile, every day for two weeks,” he says stonily, the way he says damn near  _everything_. Dom squints.  
  
“Two weeks? What happens after that?”  
  
“After that, it’s two miles, for one week.”  
  
Dom sits back in his chair, staring at the picked over remains of a tofu-endive-broccoli rabe salad, and wishes he had one of Mal’s famous cheesburgers to gnaw on and a slab of cherry cheesecake to wash it down with. Anything to take his mind off how much he kinda hates Arthur.  
  
“Isn’t this damn diet you and Mal've got me on enough? I mean, I’ve lost a lot of weight—“  
  
Arthur’s shaking his head. “Not as much as you need to be losing. And the point of this whole thing isn’t just to lose weight, but to get you in shape.” He frowns down at the barely touched Caesar salad on his own plate. “Look, Dom, I know you probably hate me right about now—I get that, believe me, I do. But the fact is, you  _need_  me. And  _I_  need you to get healthy. For Mal’s sake.”  
  
Doing everything in his power to keep from gritting his teeth—he’s gotten used to the fact that his beautiful, amazing wife’s best friend is a handsome, military man who can probably kill Dom with his little finger, but he still doesn’t like it. Never mind it’s an open secret even in the army that Arthur's as gay as the day is long—Dom spears another piece of broccoli rabe and jams it into his mouth. It tastes vile, even liberally soaked in  _scrumptious_  non-fat, no-carb dressing.  
  
“You’re my best friend’s husband,” Arthur says softly, that stony façade easing just a bit to reveal a solemn concern that makes Dom blink. “I don’t wanna see her wind up a widow before she’s thirty.”  
  
Dom rolls his eyes. “You’re being a little melodramatic, aren’t you, Arthur?”  
  
“Dom, you had a fucking  _heart-attack_!” Arthur leans across their table to hiss. “Thirty-fucking-one years old, and you had a fucking  _heart-attack_! You nearly died!”  
  
“The doctors said—“  
  
“I  _know_  what the doctors said about your health, and I know what they said about  _Mal’s_.” Shaking his head again, Arthur heaves another sigh. “The stress of  _your_  heart-attack caused her to go into early labor. She could’ve lost the baby, Dom. She could’ve  _died_. She’s on fucking bed-rest till she’s far enough along for them to induce labor.”  
  
And suddenly that gnawing fear he's been ignoring is back with a vengeance. Fear that Mal might lose the baby—and/or be lost to him. He doesn’t know what he’d do without her. He doesn’t know what he’d done  _before_  she was a part of his life.  
  
“You’re gonna be a father in less than two months, Dom.” Arthur pauses to make sure he has Dom’s full attention, then goes on, taking out a clove cigarette and lighting it like the old hand that he is. Mal says he’s smoked since he was twelve, and didn’t quit until after college, but that he still indulges in cloves when he’s stressed. “As it stands, you’re a ticking-fucking-time-bomb who won’t live to see his daughter’s junior prom, let alone her graduation. And that’s assuming _she_  survives long enough to be born.”  
  
He blows smoke out of the side of his mouth and leans even closer. Most of the time Arthur's gaze is pretty inscrutable, but no, it's entirely  _too_  scrutable: the flat, dark, deadly gaze of a shark.  
  
“If my best friend or her child die because of you, I  _will_  kill you,” he promises softly. “This is not a threat, but my solemn-fucking-word that if they die, you die, too. And it won’t be painless.”  
  
Dom looks down at his plate, unable to bear the predatory eyes of a man he fears almost as much as he fears losing the only things that mean anything to him.  
  
(And anyway, if Mal and the baby die . . . Arthur’ll just have to get in line behind Dom if he wants to do a spot of killing.)  
  
“So,” he sighs, spearing another piece of broccoli rabe. “What happens after week three?”  
  
Arthur sits back and smokes his cigarette down while Dom steadfastly cleans his plate without once taking his eyes off it. But he can still feel Arthur’s basilisk gaze on him like the ancient eyes of an unforgiving God.  
  
After a few minutes of tense silence, Arthur grunts, and takes out another clove, lighting it with the previous one.  
  
“After that, we start rebuilding you from the ground up,” he says calmly. Smoke wafts past Dom’s shoulder, sweet and also deadly. “I’ve got an exercise regimen in mind for you. It should work wonders in a relatively short time. With your full cooperation, of course.”  
  
Dom places his fork next to his empty plate, silently saying his final good-byes to cheeseburgers and cheesecakes. “Of course,” he agrees quietly.  
  


III

  
  
After a five-mile run, Dom and Arthur are laying side by side on the dusty-twiggy asphalt of a playground.  
  
They’re only a few streets from Dom’s house, so why Arthur chose  _now_  to rest, Dom doesn’t know. Hell, he doesn’t  _care_. He’s imagining a perfect five-layer chocolate cake on the backs of his eyelids . . . imagining himself reaching out for it, eager to feel the wicked-silk touch of frosting on his tongue. . . .  
  
“Hey, I’ve got a proposal for you,” Arthur says suddenly, bursting Dom’s dream-bubble. His stomach grumbles  _loudly_  in protest.  
  
“Whuh?” he says guiltily, glancing over at Arthur, who’s looking over at him, and . . .  _grinning_ , as if he hadn’t heard Dom’s ravenous, traitor-stomach complain.  
  
“A proposal? You know? A proposition. An offer.” Arthur rolls onto his side, still grinning. His face is flushed and his eyes are lit up. It’s the first time Dom’s ever seen him excited about anything, and it’s more than a little spooky.   
  
“What kind of offer?” he asks warily, sitting up on his elbows, ready to bolt if Arthur suggests they run another five miles. Not that it’d do Dom any good; Arthur runs like a gazelle, fast and graceful. In fact, he’s never so much as  _stumbled_  in the six months they’ve been running together. He'd run Dom into the ground in short order.  
  
“There’s a special program the army is recruiting for,” Arthur drawls lazily, rolling onto his back once more. He’s  _still_  grinning, his fingers drumming some beat or other on his sternum. “And it just so happens we need architects as badly as we need psychologists. Some damn fool bragged to the brass that you and Mal are the best in your respective fields.”  
  
Dom snorts. “You mean  _you_  bragged to the brass?”  
  
“Not me,” Arthur denies, but with that spooky grin grown even larger. “My mama didn’t raise no fools. I rarely volunteer information.”  
  
Thinking almost longingly of the tofu that awaits him, Dom puts his appetite aside with the ease of long practice. “So . . . you want me and Mal to contract with the army?”  
  
“Hole in one!” Arthur’s practically jubilant, and as eerie as  _Arthur . . . happy_  is, it’s also infectious. Dom’s curiosity is turning into outright curiosity and a little excitement.  
  
“But doesn’t the army have architects and psychologists of its own?”  
  
Arthur’s eyes skitter up toward the sky. “Yeah. And we’re using them, it’s just that . . . we need more. As many as we can get.”  
  
“I see.” Though he really doesn’t. “And what, exactly, would the army need with  _more_  architects and shrinks?”  
  
“Look, I don’t have the authorization to tell you much, Dom. . . .”  
  
“Then just tell me what you can.”  
  
“Well.” Arthur closes his eyes and pretzels his legs into a full-lotus with enviable ease. “We need architects and psychologists to collaborate on an ongoing project—basically, you design places. City-scapes, homes, fortresses . . .  _mazes_. But not just any mazes: mazes that take a very specific amount of time to solve.  
  
“We’d also need you to construct paradoxes—“  
  
“You mean like the Penrose Stairs?” Dom asks, his curiosity now genuinely peaked. Arthur’s face goes blank.  
  
“Huh?”  
  
Dom briefly explains, and Arthur’s eyes light up again.  
  
“Yeah—shit like that,” he says excitedly. “Any kinds of paradoxes you can think of.”  
  
Shaking his head Dom smiles a little. “And that’s it? The army wants to pay Mal and I to design stuff and come up with paradoxes?”  
  
Arthur’s eyes skitter away again. “Well, there’s more to it than that, but basically.”  
  
“And . . . are you a part of this program?” Arthur nods once, his eyes going hooded and empty for a moment. Then he blinks, and that look is gone like it never was in the first place. But Dom shivers, anyway. “And, uh . . . what, exactly, do  _you_  do in this program? You’re not an architect or a psychologist.”  
  
Arthur smiles, wry and secretive, and licks his lips. “Ah. I’m what you might call a . . . pointman.”  
  
“Meaning?”  
  
“Meaning . . . I get shit done.”  
  
“Get  _what shit_  done?”  
  
Arthur laughs, and it’s not especially nice or pleasant.  
  
“Sweetheart, you don’t have the clearance to know what I eat for breakfast, let alone to know what I do to keep my country safe, and myself in suits and cloves.” He snorts and sprawls back on the pavement, smiling up at the sky again. “I’ve been authorized to offer you and Mal this contract, but this is a one-time offer, by the way. Say no, and I can’t even talk about this with you again, let alone make you another offer.”  
  
Dom sighs. “You’re not exactly making this sound on the up-and-up,” he says. Arthur laughs again, light and boyish.  
  
“It isn’t. Entirely.” He closes his eyes and grins, his rarely-seen dimples deepening more than they ever have. “A lot of what we do is so need-to-know, even the President doesn’t have clearance to know  _everything_  we do. Some of the things we have to do are extremely extra-legal. Anything from corporate espionage to outright theft. And worse things, of course, but you and Mal won’t  _ever_  have to do any of that.”  
  
“Because that’s a . . . a pointman’s job?”  
  
Arthur dimples serenely up at Dom, who for the first time realizes that though he likely has no right to, Arthur probably sleeps very well at night.  
  
“Don’t worry about it too much about it, Dom. All we’d need from you and Mal is to  _create_.”  
  
“Create  _what_?”  
  
Arthur licks his lips and looks up at the sky again. Dom wonders what shapes Arthur sees when he looks at clouds . . . then figures he probably doesn’t want to know. “ _Create what,_  Arthur?”  
  
“Dreams,” Arthur says matter-of-factly, pointing up at a fat, amorphous cloud directly overhead. “Look—a tortoise.”  
  


IV

  
  
There’s a cake on the table and broken champagne flutes on the carpet. Their contents have already soaked into it.  
  
At the window, a man leans out, looking not down, but across; he looks at the spot where he last saw his wife.  
  
The distant sound of sirens grows ever louder, and he can smell the cake even over the scents of the city. Over the lingering waft of her perfume, light and dizzying.  
  
He leans further forward, wanting nothing more than to follow her, to death and dissolution . . . or to wakefulness. He honestly doesn’t care which, as long as he gets to  _be with her_.  
  
He can still see her face so  _clearly_. The blue-grey eyes that both their children had inherited.  
  
The children. . . .  
  
He leans back a little and fumbles in his pocket for his wallet. Along with cash and credit cards, are a multitude of photos of his children and of his wife, but the one he takes out is the very last one: the one with all four of them in the backyard on a sunny day. Their son is still a babe in arms in this photo, but their daughter is three, and old enough to stand on her own—though she clutches at her father’s leg as if afraid of the camera.  
  
Holding their son, his wife is grinning widely, a beautiful woman made to stand in the sun. With sunshine for a  _soul_ , until the darkness of her dreams consumed her light bit by brilliant bit.  
  
Not without her husband’s help, of course.  
  
The wallet falls out of his numb, clammy fingers, bounces off the ledge, and disappears into the night below, just like his wife had. The photo nearly goes with it, but a few snatches, and he has it, though it nearly costs him his own life.  
  
Shaking, he leans back inside, understanding that however much he needs to join her, his children need him more. And she . . . she wouldn’t have wanted their children to be orphans.  
  
Or wouldn’t have if she’d been in her right mind. . . .  
  
He’s violently ill on the narrow window ledge.  
  
When the  _gendarmes_  break into the room, he’s sitting under the window, dry-eyed and empty, his family still crumpled in his hand.  
  
They put him in cuffs, but no one bothers to take the photo from him.  
  


V

  
  
The Twinkie—  
  
“Dom?”  
  
—it’s—  
  
“Dom!”  
  
—disgusting.  
  
Dom tears his eyes away from the Twinkie and looks up at Arthur. Arthur, whose suit is rumpled. Arthur, whose hair is also mussed. Arthur, whose face is covered in tears.  
  
Arthur  _never_  cries.  
  
“It’s been two days now, since—“  _your anniversary_  gets left unsaid. “Since you’ve eaten anything. Two days, going on three,” he says pleadingly. It’s the way he says everything since Dom stopped eating. . . . “You have to eat  _something_ , Dom. Even if it’s  _this_  garbage.”  
  
Dom looks back at the Twinkie and feels . . . nothing. Oh, he’s hungry, has been for years, now, but for once, he has no appetite.  
  
He knocks the plate to the floor and stands up. The hotel room spins a little. Then a lot. But Arthur catches him and holds him up.  
  
“Dom, listen to me,” he pleads, shaking Dom a little. But nothing else comes out. Nothing but more tears, and hoarse, ugly sobs.  
  
Something inside Dom cracks, something that’s been building since Mal’s funeral. Since the trial. Since abandoning his children and following Arthur to Paris. Since his anniversary. That _something_  cracks right down the center, letting out  _another_  something . . . bitter and cool and awful—something poisonous and sick, that brings Dom crashing to his knees and taking Arthur with him.  
  
It hurts— _everything_  hurts, but no tears come. He's as dry as the dessert and just as empty. But Arthur is breaking down in his arms, weeping like a frightened, lonely child . . . and  _still_  Dom can’t cry. He simply holds Arthur and rocks him, like he used to do with his own children, listening to raw sobs echo in the impersonal double room they share.  
  
Arthur’s grief, like Dom’s, seems endless. The afternoon outside their windows begins to fail, turning to an overcast evening. Arthur’s sobs eventually fail, as well, turning into grasping arms, clutching hands, and desperate kisses.  
  
“My fault . . . all my fault,” he keeps whispering on Dom’s mouth, then in it. His kisses taste bitter and salty; they taste like the poison that’s been walled up in Dom, so he kisses back. It’s like kissing his reflection. “I’m so, so,  _sorry_ , Dom.”  
  
And Dom says . . . nothing. He knows whose fault Mal’s death  _really_  is.  
  
So he kisses Arthur . . . kisses him until night falls. But for streetlights, the room is almost completely dark when Arthur undoes their flies and gets onto his hands and knees.  
  
He guides Dom silently—except for a brief gasp when Dom first thrusts into him. They’re both clumsy and desperate, none too gentle. Arthur doesn’t come until after Dom’s come, caught his breath, and clumsily stroked him off.  
  
After he comes, they slump to the carpet and Arthur is almost immediately lost to a thin, troubled sleep. When the moon rises, Dom is still awake, still hard, and still inside Arthur. Not too far away from Arthur’s sleep-curled hand lays the Twinkie.  
  
Dom mashes it into the mousse-colored carpet.  
  
They next morning, they don’t talk about what happened—about Arthur’s tears or Dom’s lack thereof, about the fact that Dom now hasn’t eaten in three days and it’s going on four. They definitely don’t talk about the dried blood on the inside of Arthur’s thighs or the fact that Dom had repeatedly called Arthur  _Mal_  the night before.  
  
They can barely meet each other’s gazes anymore, but Dom can feel Arthur’s discomfited, worried eyes on him frequently.  
  
“I’ll order you eggs Benedict with Hollandaise sauce,” he offers hesitantly, fresh out of the shower. Dom almost smiles. Leave it to a Pointman to know his Architect’s favorite, long-forbidden breakfast.  
  
“Thanks, but I’m not hungry,” he lies, and when his stomach growls later, in the middle of a meeting for an easy militarization job, they both ignore it—both smile at their hosts as if nothing of note has happened.  
  
“Security,” Dom continues smoothly, flashing his best smile at Annette Devereaux, who blushes and returns it.  
  
“De sécurité,” Arthur translates with pleasant banality.  
  
“What does it mean to  _you_?” Dom directs his question at Mrs. Devereaux’s blue-grey eyes, and not at her husband’s brown and glaring ones. Under the table, Arthur stomps Dom’s foot and frowns.  
  
“Qu'est-ce que cela signifie pour vous?” he asks Mr. Devereaux.  
  
They get the job, no thanks to Dom’s ill-timed attention to Mrs. Devereaux.  
  
When he apologizes as they hail a taxi, Arthur shrugs, blinking unhappily up at the overcast sky. “Everyone reminds you of her, don’t they? Even me?”  
  
For that, Dom has no answer that wouldn’t hurt Arthur’s feelings.  
  
When they get back to the hotel, Arthur gets his own room, and Dom . . . thinks that’s for the best.  
  


VI

  
  
“Won’t you eat something?”  
  
Dom doesn’t look up at her. Instead, he continues to look out the window, watching the projections of his children play in the sunshine. “I’m not hungry.”  
  
She laughs, her warm hands settling on his back, her soft kisses pressing themselves to the nape of neck.  
  
“My darling, I’m not Arthur. I don’t take no for an answer.”  
  
Suddenly remembering that one night when neither he nor Arthur had said no, Dom frowns. Neither of them has said a word about that night.  _Ever_. Clearly that’s the way Arthur likes it, and Dom himself isn’t exactly opposed to the idea.  
  
“I know about the two of you, by the way.” She sounds amused and light-hearted. Not at all like a woman who’s known that her husband had fucked her best friend. “I’ve known for years how he feels about you. He thinks he’s been subtle about it, but he hasn’t. A wife always knows.”  
  
“Forgive me,” Dom whispers, hanging his head as her arms slide around him. He closes his eyes and they stand there for a few moments, his hands coming up to cover hers.  
  
“There is nothing to forgive,” she says finally, softly, solemnly. “Nothing at all.”  
  
Dom sighs. “Is that why you shot him in the face?”  
  
“ _Did I_? I am, after all, just a projection, am I not? I can’t kill anyone.”  
  
The point she makes is the very point Dom’s been avoiding since that disastrous Kabul job, and they both know it. “When will you admit, Dominic, that what we allow ourselves to do in our dreams is what we wish to do in our waking lives?”  
  
“Mal. . . .”  
  
“I know you don’t believe it, but it’s the truth.” She snorts gently and kisses the back of neck. “And it’s the truth that I should never have behaved so disloyally to you—should never have taken myself away from you, or the children.”  
  
“But you did, Mal. Christ,  _you did_.”  
  
For a while, she says nothing, merely holds him tighter, her slender body shaking.  
  
“Do the children miss me?” she asks suddenly, and Dom turns in her arms. Looks down into her lovely eyes.  
  
“Always,” he says, brushing her hair back out of her face. “So do I. Every minute of every day.”  
  
“Oh!” she says, seeming startled. Her eyes dart away from Dom’s and she pulls out of his embrace, walking over to the counter. She leans heavily on it for a few moments, her shoulders slumped and defeated.  
  
Dom wants to go to her, but he doesn’t.  
  
Soon enough she’s moving again, opening cabinets. The only light in the kitchen is the afternoon sunlight coming from outside. Light that she avoids as gracefully as she does everything. She moves from shadow-pool to shadow-pool, bustling around the kitchen, taking out pots and pans.  
  
“I will make you a dessert!” she decides brightly, grinning at him over her shoulder. Her eyes are still wet, her smile strained. “Sex-in-a-pan, yes?”  
  
Dom looks away. Neither at her, nor out the window.  
  
“You know I don’t eat that stuff anymore, Mal. You were the one who wanted me to quit.”  
  
“Oh, Dominic,” she laughs again, opening the refrigerator. “That was another time, another life. You’ve been so hungry for so long . . . isn’t it time you let yourself indulge, just a bit?”  
  
And because Dom’s always been a very weak man, he says nothing. Merely leans on the center island and watches her efficiently make the dessert, sometimes singing to herself, sometimes chatting one-sidedly about this and that.  
  
Because he’s a very,  _very_  weak man, Dom watches her, mouth watering for more reasons than the rising smell of chocolate and cream. He watches her and wants and wants and  _wants_  until he hears the faint strains of  _Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien_  like a distant orchestra.  
  
“Our song,” Mal murmurs softly, pausing her stirring to sway slightly.  
  
Caught in the slow switch of her hips, Dom mumbles: “I have to go.”  
  
“Stay,” Mal pleads intensely, sashaying her way around the island and toward him with freshly whipped cream held out on two slender fingers. “Just for a taste?”  
  
“I can’t. . . .”  
  
She pouts with put-on playfulness. “But I’ve worked so hard, my love. Just have one taste?” Her pout turns sultry and she raises her fingers to her mouth, licking the cream away delicately, more cat than woman.  
  
Dom’s been half hard since she first put her arms around him, but watching her like this—having her move closer to him, flour in her hair and fire in her eyes, he’s fully hard in seconds.  
  
“Hmm, is all this for me?” she teases, cupping his crotch lightly. He moans, and pulls her close, wanting to taste her creamy mouth before he goes—the best dessert he’ll ever have.  
  
 _Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien_  swells to its inevitable crescendo. . . .  
  
When Dom opens his eyes, Arthur is standing across the room, looking out the window, hands jammed in his pockets.  
  
Dom doesn’t have to look down his body to know that he’s hard. Doesn’t have to see the flush in Arthur’s cheeks to know that Arthur had seen.  
  
Doesn’t need Mal’s voice in his head telling him that Arthur still wants him.  
  
Dom groans, sitting up and removing the cannula. “You were right. We’ll be needing another Architect,” he says tersely.  
  
Arthur looks at him for long moments then sighs miserably, crossing the room again in tentative, uncertain steps. “Listen, Dom—“ he begins, his hand outstretched.  
  
Dom waves off Arthur’s gesture of—pity or solidarity. Whatever. “Just make sure their style, whatever it is, is significantly different from my own. We can’t afford to have another . . . slip-up.”  
  
“’Slip-up’?” Arthur snorts sarcastically, pulling another ubiquitous pack of cloves from his jacket pocket. He quickly lights up and takes a deep drag. “My dead best friend showed up on a job and shot me in the face. You call that a  _slip-up—_ hey, wait, where’re you going?”  
  
“To get some rest.”  
  
He leaves Arthur’s room without looking back. When he gets to his own room, he flops onto the bed, and waits for his hard-on to go away. He hasn’t fucked anyone since Arthur, and hasn’t really wanted to. All he wants is Mal back, but Mal is dead, no matter how many times he dreams about her.  
  
Lately, he only ever dreams of her when he’s in the middle of a job.  
  
When his hard-on is nothing but a memory, Dom dials room service. But just as the line engages, he hangs up, turns onto his side, and tries to sleep.  
  
Perchance to dream.  
  


VII

  
  
The Architect has a nervous smile and the worst posture Dom’s ever seen. He’s also forty-five minutes late.  
  
Not that he seems particularly upset about that. He merely asks the maitre’d for a dessert menu and grins at them both.  
  
“Call me 'Nash,'” he says, taking Dom’s then Arthur’s hand in a cool, clammy grip that’s nonetheless vice-like. His brown eyes tick between them as if he’s watching a tennis match. “My handle’s 'Nash.'”  
  
Dom can all but hear Arthur roll his eyes. “What is this,  _The Matrix_? ‘Handle’?” He snorts, tugging his hand out of Nash’s. “Your name’s Albert Weir, and no one calls you 'Nash' but  _you_.”  
  
Nash’s eyes widen and he goes even paler. Then his face turns red with embarrassment and chagrin. “Arthur,” Dom warns, glancing at his mercurial Pointman. Arthur’s smirking a little, his dimples coming out in force.  
  
“What, Dom? I’m just making a, heh, point.” Arthur leans in toward Nash, his smirk turning into that stony, flat look that Dom thankfully hasn’t seen focused on him in six years. “Point being, that just because Ava Pastorius vouches for you, doesn’t make you automatically  _in_  with us, Mr. Weir. I’ve done a lot of digging around on you, and believe me . . . if it weren’t for Dom, you wouldn’t have gotten  _this_  far.”  
  
“Arthur,” Dom says again, hints of steel in his voice. One thing Dom’s discovered over the years is that despite his generally calm exterior, Arthur Bloom is a feral wolf: vicious, and overprotective of what he considers his own. But like any wolf, Arthur is also, in his own strangely malleable way, trainable and containable.  
  
He’s utterly loyal and, like every good Army-boy, made to follow the orders of whoever holds that loyalty. And since Mal’s a memory and the Army’s no longer an option . . . Dom is the one who now has the wolf by the ears.  
  
He has no intention of letting go anytime soon, if only for Arthur’s own sake.  
  
And so, he levels a narrow-eyed look at his Pointman. Arthur subsides with another stony glare for poor Nash, who’s starting to resemble a frightened rabbit: ready to hop.  
  
Dom smiles reassuringly and holds out his hand. Nash takes it hesitantly, and when he does, he jumps at a small jolt of static electricity.  
  
“Fucking carpets,” he mutters ruefully, putting his finger in his mouth and blushing. “I fucking _hate_  those things.”  
  
Arthur huffs and rolls his eyes. “Who the fuck hates  _carpets_?”  
  
“ _I_  do.” Nash shrugs without shifting his gaze from Dom. He smiles around his finger. “Walkin’ on it, munchin’ it—carpets can go kick rocks for all I care.”  
  
“That's just ducky,” Arthur says with considerable disdain. Dom laughs paternally, and just then their waiter reappears, not a moment too soon.  
  
“Would the gentlemen care for dessert?” he asks politely. Nash gives him a measuring once-over and attempts what’s supposed to be a charming smile, but is really a smarmy sort of smirk.  
  
“I’ll take a slice of strawberry shortcake, if ya got it.”  
  
Arthur huffs again. “I’ll just have coffee, no cream or sugar.”  
  
The waiter looks at Dom, who shakes his head once. “Nothing for me, but the bill.”  
  
When the waiter hustles off with a nod, Nash turns a curious look from said waiter’s ass, to Dom. “What? Don’t wanna wreak havok on that fine-ass body?”  
  
“You’ve got a big mouth, Weir, and I don’t like that in an Architect.” Arthur leans forward once more, his eyes narrowed to mean, dangerous slits. Nash sits back, looking more dismayed than chastened.  
  
“Dude.  _Chill_. I was just joking.” He laughs nervously, glancing at Dom as if for help. Dom merely shrugs.  
  
“Yeah? Well, we’re looking for a professional, not for a comedian.” Arthur cocks a challenging eyebrow.  
  
Backed into a corner, Nash finally shows his teeth. “And  _I_  ain’t looking for some anal retentive closet-case to talk down to me like I’m a fucking retard.” He stands up and smoothes his off-the-rack suit before giving Arthur the finger. “ _Peace-out_ , Homeslice.”  
  
Arthur gives Nash the two-finger salute back. “And good riddance to bad rubbish.”  
  
“ _Gentlemen_.” Dom says with all the irony he can muster, and they both look at him. He smiles his most crooked, friendly smile. “Let’s pretend we’re  _not_  catty teenage girls and try to get some business done. Nash?”  
  
“I don’t need his shit, Mr. Cobb.” He points at Arthur but doesn't look at him.  
  
“It’s Dominic. And Arthur’s going to keep a civil tongue from here on out. Isn’t that right, Arthur?”  
  
Arthur’s adjusts his tie and takes out a pack of cloves. Goes through the business of lighting one and savoring the first mouthful of sweet, spicy smoke.  
  
“Fine,” he finally grits out, his face twisting momentarily before composing itself into that blank wall Dom hasn’t seen in quite awhile. “Whatever you say, boss.”  
  
Dom returns his gaze to Nash, and the Architect sits back down with a dramatic sigh.  
  
“Excellent. Let’s get down to brass tacks, shall we?” Dom takes out his moleskine and pen, handing both to Nash. “I need you to draw me a maze that takes exactly one minute to solve. You have exactly one minute to draw it.”  
  
Gaping, Nash casts a questioning glance on Arthur, who blows smoke in his face with smug satisfaction. “Tick-tock, builder-boy.”  
  


VIII

  
  
Nash’s work is impressive.  
  
Not the best Dom’s ever seen, but pretty damned good. More than good enough for the corporate espionage jobs they take. His eye for detail could use some developing, but the scope of his designs more than makes up for it.  
  
“And I can do much more,” Nash assures Dom as they walk through a quick mock-up of Munich. “I’m an army-brat: I’ve lived in lots of places all over the world. You name the place, and I can probably get a good cityscape going on a moment’s notice.”  
  
Dom smiles a little and stops walking; Nash stops with him. Around them, projections of tourists throng the area. “Believe me, you’ll be put to the test. We get a lot of Marks who’ve traveled extensively—mostly throughout Europe and Asia—and though Arthur can get you all the information you need on a place, there’s really no substitute for firsthand experience.”  
  
Nash is nodding and studying Dom as if he’s trying to commit him to memory. “Fuckin’-a.”  
  
They wander around Munich some more, Dom looking for and unable to find holes or blank spots in Nash’s architecture. Nash rambles about his most recent work—with a South African venture called COBOL—and the bonus he’d received for his “exemplary” work.  
  
“Out of curiosity . . . what did you do with your bonus,” Dom asks as  _Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien_ begins to play. Nash smirks.  
  
“Paid off some debts, threw some parties, traveled . . . got my dick wet ten times on every continent . . . you know, the usual,” he says dismissively, shrugging, but looking wistful. “I guess that’s Arthur letting us know it’s about that time. Huh. Figures he’d pick such a shit song to do it with.”  
  
Dom squints into the distance, saying nothing.  
  
When they kick, Arthur gently removes Dom’s cannula, leaving Nash to his own devices. Seemingly unfazed, Nash licks his lips and smirks, staring at Arthur’s ass.  
  
 _I regret this already,_  Dom thinks with a dull twinge of foreshadowing.  _But. . . ._  “He’s in,” he tells Arthur, who swears and glares over his shoulder at a preening, grinning Nash, who winks and removes his cannula with a wince.  
  
“This is—a  _huge_  mistake, Dom.” Arthur shakes his head in disbelief. “I just wanna go on the record as saying that, so when the shit comes down around our ears, I don’t have to waste my breath saying ‘I fucking  _told you_  so.’”  
  
“Arthur—“  
  
“Jesus, dude, will you  _take a chill-pill, already,_ ” Nash says, in a tone and with a careless smirk that’s precisely calculated to piss Arthur off even more. It’s just a good thing Arthur’s no longer looking at him, but instead pleading wordlessly with Dom.  
  
Dom looks away. At the pink-prick of blood welling out of his arm. “We’ll bring him in on the initial meeting, and cut him in for a full third of the take, as well.”  
  
Arthur’s face closes and he takes a step back.  
  
Then he’s slamming out of the workspace without even stopping for his suit jacket.  
  
“I’m gonna tap that  _so_  hard,” Nash says with leering confidence. Sighing and wondering if it’s too late to call this brand new partnership off, Dom glares forbiddingly at his erstwhile Architect.  
  
“Arthur’s not part of the terms, Nash.”  
  
Meeting Dom’s glare with a too-innocent look, Nash’s leer turns into that all-purpose smirk. “What? It’s not like  _you_  have a claim on him . . . do you?”  
  
Dom’s glare goes from hot to arctic. “Here’s a nickel’s worth of free advice, Mr. Weir: if you push Arthur hard enough, you’ll wind up at the bottom of the Seine with your dick shot off and his fondest regards . . . but you do whatever you want.  _After_  the Iseley job. In the meantime, keep it in your pants. Are we clear?”  
  
Smirk-smirk-smirk. “As crystal, boss-man.”  
  


IX

  
  
After the Falcone job goes bad, Arthur and Nash have an epic fight. And that’s saying a lot, considering the paint-blistering verbal (would have been physical, if not for Dom) fights that’ve taken place over the past several months.  
  
But this time, Dom’ll be damned if he acts like a referee yet again.  
  
“If you two don’t solve whatever beef you have with each other, this’ll be the last time I work with  _either_  of you!  _Get it sorted out!_ ” He grabs his coat and stalks out of the workspace, face red and ears burning.  
  
“Dom? What the  _fuck_ —“  
  
“Where ya goin’, boss-man?”  
  
Dom slams the heavy door on their queries.  
  
He doesn’t make it farther than the nearest bar, not that he’d expected to. Lately this has become a ritual, of sorts: after the job, whether good or bad, Arthur and Nash wind up fighting and Dom, after trying to sort them both out, finally throws up his hands and finds someplace to get drunk. He assumes that eventually Arthur does the same.  
  
(What  _Nash_  winds up doing is anyone’s guess, but sometimes he shows up the next morning with hickies on his neck and scratches on his arms.)  
  
As the bartender pours the first of what Dom expects to be many glasses of scotch, he realizes that he’s not thirsty at all.  
  
He’s  _hungry. Ravenous,_  even.  
  
He hasn’t eaten anything in nearly a seventy-two hours, and his stomach is crawling up his backbone, demanding anything, absolutely  _anything_  to make the pangs go away. . . .  
  
Paying the bill, he leaves the scotch untouched and steps back out into the mid-morning sunlight.  
  
He wanders past  _trattoria_  after  _trattoria_ , mouth watering at the smells of Italian breakfasts being served. Before long, almost dizzy with hunger, he stumbles across a small bakery with an assortment of confections in the window, including the most perfect tiramisu Dom’s ever laid eyes upon. . . .  
  
He gets a slice to drown his sorrows in. At least that’s what he tells himself. In reality, he knows that the slice is for Arthur. An apology—not for storming out, but for ever bringing Nash onto the team in the first place. After all Arthur’s done for him over the years, the last thing he deserves is the stress of dealing with someone neither of them particularly cares for.  
  
 _Maybe it’s time to say good-bye to Nash,_  Dom thinks as he pays for the tiramisu and thanks the cashier in Italian.  _Anyone, even a mediocre Architect would be better than someone we can’t stand and can’t trust. . . ._  
  
When he steps back into the  _strada_ , paper bag in hand, he’s come to a decision that it  _is_  time for Nash to find employment elsewhere. And having made that decision, he feels lighter in spirit than he has in months.  
  
For awhile, anyway, it’ll just be him and Arthur again, the way it used to be. They’ll go for runs, like they used to, drink together like they used to (instead of apart), and maybe eat dessert together, like they never have.  
  
(As far as Dom knows, Arthur doesn’t even  _have_  a sweet tooth, let alone the kind that’s required to genuinely enjoy a tiramisu, but maybe if it came on the heels of a sincere apology. . . .)  
  
 _There’s a first time for everything,_  Dom thinks, smiling at passersby, who smile back. Trendy and beautiful though the women are, none of them remind him of Mal. Suited and handsome though they are, none of the men remind him of Arthur.  
  
Feeling an unfamiliar pang of anxiety and impatience, Dom picks up his pace, no longer smiling. Soon, but not soon enough, his feet take him back to the building they’re currently renting space in. He climbs the narrow metal stairs to the third floor, Arthur’s name on his lips, when he hears a clipped: "Christ, not so  _hard_!"  
  
It's Arthur's voice, and even before Dom reaches the top of the staircase, he hears a low, drawn-out moan, and another familiar voice: “Stop fighting me, and just  _take it_ , you little bitch.”  
  
“Call me that one more time and see if I don’t put a bullet in your head, asshole.”  
  
Before he can think better of it, Dom’s creeping quietly up the remaining steps and slowly cracking the door that lets into the workspace. Despite every scrap of common sense he has telling him he  _knows_  what he’ll see, and so there’s no need to actually  _see_  it, Dom peers into the room. . . .  
  
Most of the fluorescent lighting is still on, just as it was when Dom left, and so he has a perfect view of the center of the room, where Arthur is bent over the big table, perpendicular to the door. And Nash is . . . is. . . .  
  
He’s thrusting and undulating his hips, pumping in and out of Arthur like a man running a race, panting and biting his lip. His eyes are squinched shut and his hand is on Arthur’s hip tight enough to bruise. But Arthur doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, Arthur’s—  
  
Arthur’s head is now turned so he’s looking right at Dom, his eyes hot with pleasure and wide with shock.  
  
“Dom!” he gasps, then his eyes are fluttering shut, his body jerking several times before he goes still. Behind him Nash is pounding away harder than ever.  
  
“Fuck . . . told you . . . don’t call me that . . . when we fuck,” he pants out in time to his thrusts. One hand leaves Arthur’s hip to splay on his back, where it rubs slowly up and down. Arthur shivers and moans, his body jerking a few more times. “Yeah . . . just like that . . . Daddy’s got you. . . .”  
  
Even in the midst of a questionable afterglow, Arthur’s lips curl in a moue of distaste. Then Nash is grunting, and slamming Arthur’s hips back against him. Arthur winces and swears, but doesn’t break gazes with Dom.  
  
“ _Dom_. . . .” he says, loud and clear, his eyes intent and intense. Then he winces and muffles a whimper as Nash thrusts once more,  _hard_.  
  
“Spiteful.  _Bitch_ ,” Nash grunts again red-faced and shaking through the aftershocks of his climax.  
  
The tiramisu is dropped . . . is quite forgotten. For the first time ever, Dom turns his back on Arthur—turns and leaves, angrier with himself than he’s been in a very long time.  
  
The next day, when Arthur hobbles into the workspace, closely followed by a smug-looking Nash, Dom doesn’t even look up, doesn’t even say ‘hello.’  
  
“We’ve got a job offer,” he says without inflection. “I left copies of the file on your desks.”  
  
“Sweet. Like bear-meat,” Nash says lazily. Arthur says nothing.  
  
Throughout the day, Dom avoids both their glances: Arthur’s worried, apologetic ones and Nash’s sly, smirking ones. He focuses his full attention on the details of their latest job offer from COBOL Industries. They’re not exactly the safest company to do work for, but Dom needs _something_  to keep himself occupied in his banishment.  
  
His stomach doesn’t growl all day.  
  


X

  
  
Dom moodily watches Arthur peruse the Fischer files and eat methodically, ignoring his own appetite completely.  
  
Saito’s jet has every amenity, including a full galley and staff. The smell of food that’d normally make Dom’s stomach rumble hungrily does nothing for him. Not even the slab of spice cake at Arthur’s elbow draws the slightest attention from him.  
  
Though he’s on his fourth glass of aged scotch. . . .  
  
“You’re staring at me,” Arthur notes calmly, eyes still moving methodically from plate to files, fingers handling both paper and fork with equal parts grace and efficiency. “What’s up?”  
  
“I’m sorry. About Nash,” Dom says finally, glancing out the window. Nothing but swirls of overcast-blue and grey-white.  
  
He can feel Arthur’s gaze when it lands on him—curious and almost gentle.  
  
“Shit happens,” he says simply, then goes back to his meal and his files.  
  
And that’s the end of that.  
  


XI

  
  
The 6a.m. knock on Dom’s door, when it comes, is no surprise.  
  
He’s expecting room service with what may be his last breakfast as a free man: fried eggs (with Hollandaise sauce), French toast, bacon, scotch, and cherry cheesecake.  
  
It’s been years since he’s had such an indulgence, but he officially couldn’t give two shits about his waistline, anymore. He’ll either be in a position to let himself go a little, when he’s home with his kids . . . or he’ll be in prison. Either way, there’ll be no more emails from Arthur about exercise and nutritious meals, no more texts about taking long runs or hitting a gym together. . . .  
  
All to the good, to Dom’s way of thinking . . . he thinks.  
  
He goes to the door, a twenty dollar tip in his hand. When he looks out the peephole—old habits die never—he sees . . . Arthur.  
  
 _Speak of the devil._  Dom’s unbolting the door before the surprise wears off. The flight’s not till noon, and Arthur’s a notoriously late sleeper. Ergo, something must be wrong.  
  
“What’s up?” he asks, expecting Arthur’s usual bulletpoint list of all the problems that are waiting to ambush them. But Arthur merely stands there, luggage in hand, smiling bemusedly. He’s perfect, of course; not a single hair is out of place.  
  
“Me, apparently. I haven’t slept a wink all night,” he says, inviting himself in. He hands the luggage—garment bag and all—to Dom, who takes it without hesitation. Arthur closes the door then leans on it and gazes at Dom with tired, fond eyes. “I’ve spent the last nine goddamn hours going over the plans and looking for weak-spots . . . my eyes are killing me.”  
  
“Ah.” Dom turns and moves deeper into the suite. Arthur follows him after a moment during which his gaze is still as tangible as afternoon sunlight. Dom drapes the garment bag on the back of the sofa and places the wheeled suitcase next to the coffee table. “I take it you found something, or you wouldn’t be here.”  
  
“Actually,” Arthur drawls wryly, and from very close behind Dom. “I didn’t find a damn thing wrong. We’re good to go.”  
  
“Then what brings you here so early? Hell, if I’d known you were coming, I could’ve ordered you breakfast, too.” Dom turns to face Arthur and catches that fond gaze again—only there’s something else there, too. Something that makes Dom fight off a blush. Unsuccessfully.  
  
Arthur clears his throat and looks away, a small smile tugging at his lips. “Maybe I could just steal a few bites of yours. I haven’t had Hollandaise sauce in years.”  
  
Dom’s mouth drops open. “How’d you know?”  
  
“I’m a Pointman, remember?” Arthur snorts meeting Dom’s eyes again; his own flash arrogantly. “I know everything. And that includes my Extractor’s favorite breakfast.”  
  
Dom sits on the couch, with a sigh. “I suppose I’ll get a lecture about it.”  
  
“Not from me, you won’t.” Arthur sits next to him, close enough that their legs are almost touching. Dom can feel Arthur’s body heat all along his left side. “I stopped being a Nazi about your weight awhile ago. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re in fantastic shape—well, maybe not your liver, but the rest of you, yeah. You could eat whatever you want, now. As long as it’s in moderation.”  
  
Dom squints. “If that’s the case, why’re you still sending me meal plans and exercise regimens?”  
  
Now  _Arthur’s_  the one who blushes.  
  
And Arthur  _never_  blushes.  
  
“Habit, I guess,” he mutters, looking toward the window, his face closing briefly, the way it does when they’re treading on territory he’s not going to have any part of. Dom pinches the bridge of his nose. It’s too early and he’s too hungry to deal with his own emotional unavailability, let alone Arthur’s. But deal, he will. He’d do damn near anything for Arthur.  
  
“Frankly, Dom, I wouldn’t care if you weighed five hundred pounds, so long as. . . .” at the wistful note in Arthur’s voice, Dom risks another glance at him. Arthur’s giving him a once-over that’s bright and assessing. It ends at Dom’s clasped hands, of all places. “You’ve got beautiful hands, you know? An  _artist’s_  hands.”  
  
Dom looks down at his hands, large and square, and links them on his left knee. “Yeah, well, they’re the  _only_  things about me that are artistic, anymore.” He twiddles his thumbs restlessly for most of a silent, tense minute, and then Arthur’s hand comes to rest on his own, warm and reassuring.  
  
If anyone’s got stereotypical artist’s hands, it’s Arthur. Artist or assassin, and Arthur can’t draw to save his life.  
  
“Listen, Dom,” he starts to say, but there’s a knock on the door. He jumps then scowls. “Timing of the gods. That’s breakfast, right?”  
  
“Um, yeah,” Dom says laughing nervously. Arthur gazes at him intently for a few moments, then smiles.  
  
“I’ll get it. Don’t go anywhere.” He squeezes Dom’s hands and stands up, almost at attention. He cuts an enviably precise figure with his expensive suit and slicked-back hair, and when he glances down at Dom and that smile widens. . . .  
  
“Arthur,” Dom breathes, uncertain what’ll come after that. But Arthur saves him by repeating: “Don’t go anywhere.”  
  
Then he’s striding toward the door. When he opens it, the bellhop, a silent and dour older man, wheels in the food cart.  
  
“Just, ah—sit it on the coffee table . . . thanks.” Arthur holds out his hand and the bellhop takes it after a moment. Dom smiles a little; Arthur’s probably just palmed the man a perfectly folded fifty dollar bill. “You have a good one.”  
  
“Thank you, sir,” the bellhop says, looking down at his hand. That dour look is replaced by one of pleasant surprise. “Thank you, very much!”  
  
“Not a problem.” Arthur walks the man to the door and sends him on his way with another _thanks_. Then he takes the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign off the inner knob and puts it on the outer before closing the door again.  
  
Dom’s stomach growls as the scent of piping hot breakfast wafts its way up to his nose and snags his attention. The eggs are a tad underdone, but the French toast and bacon looks perfect, as does the huge slice of cherry cheesecake.  
  
“Holy shit, that looks amazing,” Arthur says, sitting next to him once more, his own stomach growling for the first time Dom’s ever heard. He grins at his Pointman, catching a strangely vulnerable look on his face. Arthur’s not looking at the food. He is, in fact, staring at Dom’s mouth.  
  
“Want some?”  
  
Arthur blanches then flushes. Then reaches for the fork; but he hesitates at the last second. “Logistics problem, Dom: there’s only one fork.”  
  
Dom rolls his eyes. “We  _can_  share a fork, you know.” He picks up a piece of French toast and nibbles on a corner of it. . . .  
  
. . . absolute  _Heaven_. He licks cinnamon and brown sugar from his lips. This time, Arthur’s the one gaping. And swallowing. And flushing deeper. “Jesus, Dom, you want I should leave you alone with the fucking French toast?”  
  
Not deigning to answer that, Dom nudges the tray toward Arthur’s half of the table. “Dig in, Arthur. I know you’re starving. I am, too.”  
  
Arthur sighs, the fork hovering—then settling over the cheesecake. He slices a small piece, his lips puckered with uncertainty. His first bite is just as uncertain, as if he’s expecting it to bite him back. But after he actually  _tastes_  the cheesecake, his second piece is noticeably larger.  
  
“God, this is  _good_ ,” he mumbles wonderingly, through a mouthful of cake. “What  _is_  it?”  
  
Dom blinks; for a moment he’s sure Arthur’s joking. Then he’s even more sure that Arthur’s  _not_. “It’s cheesecake. Cherry cheesecake.”  
  
Arthur nods, rolling his eyes like a man having a revelation. “I didn’t know it tasted this  _good_! No wonder you couldn’t get enough of this stuff!”  
  
Dom laughs. “You sound like a man who’s never had cheesecake before.”  
  
Inhaling his third and fourth bites, Arthur shakes his head. “I wasn’t allowed sweets growing up. Then, when I got older . . . I tried a Yodel—“  
  
“Rookie mistake. Those things are  _gross_.” Dom makes a face, and Arthur grins, cherries and cheesecake smeared on his teeth.  
  
“Yeah. Gross enough that I never wanted to try any other sweets after that.” Arthur shrugs, going back for bite number five. “If I’d tried this, I’d  _never_  have stopped eating it . . . you’ve got a hell of a lot of willpower going cold turkey, Dom.”  
  
His eyes are impressed and approving. At least, they are before he’s going back for more cake.  
  
Breakfast forgotten, Dom watches Arthur reduce the cake to two-thirds, then one-half, then one-third, then one bite.  
  
“Fuck,” Arthur says guiltily, pausing over that last bit and looking up at Dom sheepishly. “I ate all your cake.”  
  
“So I noticed,” Dom chuckles, waving a hand dismissively. “Go ahead. Finish it.”  
  
“Are you sure?” But Arthur’s already spearing the bite with his fork and guiding it toward his mouth.  
  
“I’m sure. Enjoy.”  
  
And apparently Arthur does, rolling his eyes Heavenward before closing them in what appears to be complete rapture.  
  
When he swallows . . . Dom swallows, too, his throat suddenly gone dry enough to click. The base of his spine is starting to tingle.  
  
“You did a bad thing, man. I’m never gonna be able to keep my girlish figure now that I know how fucking  _good_  dessert can be.” Arthur laughs, leaning back in the couch with a happy sigh. He looks utterly content and still perfectly neat, but for a small smear of red in the corner of his mouth.  
  
He  _looks_  all of fifteen, grinning and with his eyes alight. It makes something within Dom, something unyielding and huge, crack open. It spills out not bitterness, but warmth as startling as it is familiar.  
  
And long-missed: he hasn’t felt this wash of . . . of  _tenderness_  since. . . .  
  
“You’ve got some cherry juice, uh—” Dom reaches out to brush the offending bit of red away with his thumb. But as he’s wicking it away, Arthur licks the incarnadined digit, sucking it into his mouth. His eyes slip shut for a moment, then he’s staring intently into Dom’s shocked ones as he pulls off Dom’s thumb.  
  
That tender warmth is quickly turning into insistent heat that’s also startling and familiar, and long-missed. Dom hasn’t felt it since that night, a year ago, when Arthur’s clumsy, grief-desperate kisses had changed—had become less about grief, and more about  _touch_  and  _taste_.  
  
“Dom,  _please_ ,” Arthur says, rough and hoarse. His eyes are wide and scared, brave and desperate; when he sits forward, he’s actually  _shaking_.  
  
Then strong arms are sliding around Dom’s neck, and Arthur’s  _moaning_  and pulling an unresisting Dom down to the couch, on top of him. Dom goes hesitantly, but willingly, unable to look away from Arthur’s face, his hectic-red cheeks, and mussed up hair.  
  
“I need you,” Arthur whispers softly, his eyes more vulnerable than they’ve ever been. In fact, Dom knows that, if he wanted to, he could break Arthur with one word. “I’ve needed you for so long . . . can I have you? Please?  _Please_?”  
  
“Shh,” Dom whispers back, smothering Arthur’s words with his mouth, licking them away with his tongue. Licking past cherry-stained lips and into Arthur’s wet, willing mouth.  
  
And  _God_  . . . Arthur tastes like dessert . . . creamy and sweet, and for the first time in years, Dom is  _full_.  
  


I

  
  
Sitting in a hotel room, hopefully the last for a while, Dom hasn’t unpacked, nor has he called his children. Oh, he’d tried, several times, but had never even gotten so far as dialing the number. He is, he’s discovered, bone-deep weary. After nearly eighteen months on the run, now that he’s finally safe and almost  _home_ , he doesn’t know how to get the rest of the way there.  
  
He feels . . . odd. As if there’re pieces of him missing. And he may not know much, anymore, but he knows he can’t go home to his children a burnt-out husk. Somehow, he has to put what pieces of himself he can find back together and relearn how to feel.  
  
But he’s so  _numb_ , as if all his feelings have been permanently shorted out. . . .  
  
So the 6p.m. knock on his door isn’t really a surprise. It isn’t much of anything except another hotel room door to open.  
  
Dom drags his feet across the room and opens it without even glancing at the peephole. Then he stares stupidly as that numbness quivers and is shattered.  
  
“Here. Take this before I get any more grease on my suit,” Arthur says irritably, inviting himself in and shoving a bucket of KFC at Dom, who takes it slowly, like a man moving underwater. He looks down at the chicken like a man who’s never seen its like before then he looks up at Arthur again.  
  
“You won’t believe how many bakeries I had to scour before I found one that made  _the_  perfect dessert.” Arthur closes the door and shoves something else at Dom. A smallish box held closed with colored twine. Over the raucous scent of fried chicken, Dom can smell hints of chocolate. . . .  
  
“I’m so hungry and horny, I don’t know which appetite to satisfy first.” Arthur sighs, shrugging out of his jacket—which does have a rather large grease stain—and unbuttoning his vest, prowling into the room as if he owns it. Dom follows him, swamped by more emotions than he can identify, though the largest one by far is relief.  
  
“You disappeared after the airport,” he says hesitantly. Arthur, in the midst of loosening his tie, looks at him solemnly, apologetically.  
  
“I had . . . business to take care of, and it wouldn’t wait. But it’s over and done. I have nowhere else I need to be.”  
  
Dom bites his lips and looks down at the food in his arms. He’s not especially hungry at the moment. “Are you sure about that?”  
  
Arthur approaches him on quiet feet and cups Dom’s face in gentle hands that smell like gun oil and chicken. Dom smiles a little and meets Arthur’s eyes, certainty swelling within him like a balloon. He feels, for the first time in a long time, weightless.  
  
“Pretty sure.” Arthur grins, dimples out in force as he strokes Dom’s cheeks with his thumbs. “I just wanna eat dessert with my guy and pretend nothing exists outside of this hotel room for the next twelve hours.”  
  
His heart beating faster, Dom lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He leans in slowly and Arthur meets him more than halfway, eager and desperate for a kiss. Dom, himself, is eager for the same. For the feel of his second, and surely last chance at someone to eat dessert with.  
  
Arthur moans softly into the tentative, tingling kiss and, encouraged, Dom licks his way into Arthur's mouth, wanting to taste that little moan. Wanting to take it into himself like oxygen. Wanting any part of Arthur he can get and keep.  
  
Arthur’s hands slide down to Dom’s collarbone, down his chest. Then Dom feels the bucket of chicken being taken away from him as Arthur breaks the kiss. Grinning again, he places the bucket at their feet then straightens up, reaching for the box, too. But Dom holds it out of the way.  
  
“What’d you bring me?” he asks teasingly, and Arthur’s grin turns just as teasing.  
  
“Open it, and see.”  
  
Smiling once more, Dom quickly undoes the twine, dropping it on the floor. He opens the box . . . and nearly drops it, too.  
  
“It’s called Sex-in-a-pan,” Arthur says obliviously, staring at the cake and licking his lips. Then he looks up at Dom and frowns. “What? What’s wrong? You don’t like it?”  
  
“I—“ Dom almost closes the box, expecting a flood of painful memories to sweep him out to sea. . . .  
  
But all he feels is that overwhelming tenderness and warmth—gratefulness that it’s  _Arthur_ offering him this. That it’s  _Arthur_  that’s here with him, after everything.  
  
And  _certainty_. Above all else, that strange, unshakeable certainty.  
  
So he searches Arthur’s eyes for long moments. All he sees there is worry, and the same yearning ache that he’s seen there for years. The same yearning ache he, himself, understands once more, and can reciprocate.  
  
“No, I love it, I just . . . I haven’t had it in forever.” Dom looks down at the cake again. Still, no pain, no rush of memories, just anticipation. It  _has_  been years. “Hell, I don’t even remember what it tastes like, it’s been so long.”  
  
That grin makes a wavering comeback and Arthur clears his throat. “Well, then, allow me to refresh your memory, Mr. Cobb,” he says lowly, swiping a finger full of icing and pressing it to Dom’s lips. When Dom licks and sucks his finger clean, Arthur’s eyes dilate noticeably, flutter shut, then open again.  
  
Then his stomach rumbles loudly, demandingly.  
  
This is the second time Dominic Cobb falls in love, and he falls happily, with his eyes wide open.  
  
“Sheesh, see what a bad influence you are?” Arthur asks, taking another finger full and licking this one away, himself: delicate, cat-like flickers of tongue. Dom, already half hard, gets that much harder.  
  
“Fuck,” he breathes, leaning in to nuzzle and kiss Arthur’s neck, inhaling the scents of expensive cologne and rich, dark chocolate. Arthur laughs throatily.  
  
“Indeed. But first, sweetheart,” he says between kisses, still laughing. “First, we eat.”


End file.
